Read the following passage and answer the question that follows.

Attempting to understand science and scientific reasoning in terms of the subjective beliefs of scientists would seem to be a disappointing departure for those who seek an objective account of science. Howson and Urbach have an answer to that charge. They insist that the Bayesian theory constitutes an objective theory of scientific inference. That is, given a set of prior probabilities and some new evidence, Bayes' theorem dictates in an objective way what the new, posterior, probabilities must be in the light of that evidence. There is no difference in this respect between Bayesianism and deductive logic, because logic has nothing to say about the source of the propositions that constitute the premises of a deduction either. It simply dictates what follows from those propositions once they are given. The Bayesian defence can be taken a stage further. It can be argued that the beliefs of individual scientists, however much they might differ at the outset, can be made to converge given the appropriate input of evidence. It is easy to see in an informal way how this can come about. Suppose two scientists start out by disagreeing greatly about the probable truth of hypothesis h which predicts otherwise unexpected experimental outcome e. The one who attributes a high probability to h will regard e as less unlikely than the one who attributes a low probability to h. So P(e) will be high for the former and low for the latter. Suppose now that e is experimentally confirmed. Each scientist will have to adjust the probabilities for h by the factor P(e/h)/P(e). However, since we are assuming that e follows from h, P(e/h) is 1 and the scaling factor is 1/P(e). Consequently, the scientist who started with a low probability for h will scale up that probability by a larger factor than the scientist who started with a higher probability for h. As more positive evidence comes in, the original doubter is forced to scale up the probability in such a way that it eventually approaches that of the already convinced scientist. In this way, argue the Bayesians, widely differing subjective opinions can be brought into conformity in response to evidence in an objective way.

Strictly following the idea put forward in the article, which one of the following is a logical possibility:

Question

The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
For early postcolonial literature, the world of the novel was often the nation. Postcolonial novels were usually [concerned with] national questions. Sometimes the whole story of the novel was taken as an allegory of the nation, whether India or Tanzania. This was important for supporting anti-colonial nationalism, but could also be limiting - land-focused and inward looking.
My new book "Writing Ocean Worlds" explores another kind of world of the novel: not the village or nation, but the Indian Ocean world. The book describes a set of novels in which the Indian Ocean is at the centre of the story. It focuses on the novelists Amitav Ghosh, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Lindsey Collen and Joseph Conrad [who have] centred the Indian Ocean world in the majority of their novels. . . Their work reveals a world that is outward-looking full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection. They are all very different - from colonially inclined (Conrad) to radically anti-capitalist (Collen), but together draw on and shape a wider sense of Indian Ocean space through themes, images, metaphors and language. This has the effect of remapping the world in the reader's mind, as centred in the interconnected global south. ... The Indian Ocean world is a term used to describe the very long-lasting connections among the coasts of East Africa, the Arab coasts, and South and East Asia.
These connections were made possible by the geography of the Indian Ocean. For much of history, travel by sea was much easier than by land, which meant that port cities very far apart were often more easily connected to each other than to much closer inland cities. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean. This is the interconnected oceanic world referenced and produced by the novels in my book. For their part Ghosh, Gurnah, Collen and even Conrad reference a different set of histories and geographies than the ones most commonly found in fiction in English. Those [commonly found ones] are mostly centred in Europe or the US, assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and mention places like Paris and New York. The novels in [my] book highlight instead a largely Islamic space, feature characters of colour and centralise the ports of Malindi, Mombasa, Aden, Java and Bombay. . . . It is a densely imagined, richly sensory image of a southern cosmopolitan culture which provides for an enlarged sense of place in the world.
This remapping is particularly powerful for the representation of Africa. In the fiction, sailors and travellers are not all European. . . African, as well as Indian and Arab characters, are traders, nakhodas (dhow ship captains), runaways, villains, missionaries and activists. This does not mean that Indian Ocean Africa is romanticised. Migration is often a matter of force; travel is portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure, freedoms are kept from women and slavery is rife. What it does mean is that the African part of the Indian Ocean world plays an active role in its long, rich history and therefore in that of the wider world.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understanding the Question:
We must apply, strictly, the passage's model: one hypothesis h makes one prediction, called outcome e, and belief in h changes in an objective way once e is checked against evidence. The question asks which option is a genuine, logically sound example of this model.

Step 2: Key Approach:
Check each option for whether it keeps h and e as two separate, clearly labelled things, with h doing the predicting and e being the single outcome predicted, matching exactly how the passage sets up its example with the two scientists.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
The first option compares astrologers to economists as two rival prediction systems rather than testing one hypothesis against one outcome, so it does not match the passage's single h-to-e format. The second option puts both h and e inside one combined statement about stock markets syncing with the heavenly bodies, but the passage's whole method depends on h and e being distinct: a hypothesis proposed first, then an outcome checked against it later. The third option calls human thinking e and market crashes h, which reverses the natural order of a hypothesis leading to an outcome, since here the supposed outcome is placed before the supposed hypothesis in the causal chain. The remaining possibility in the original paper chains two separate outcomes off one hypothesis, which turns the passage's single clean prediction into a two step process; the passage's model does not describe or need such a chain either. Since every option either mixes up two systems, merges h and e together, or swaps their roles, none of them actually reproduces the simple h-predicts-e structure the passage lays out.

Step 4: Final Answer:
The answer is option 4: none of these. Every listed option departs from the passage's plain hypothesis-predicts-outcome model in its own way, so none of them can be called a correct logical possibility under that model.

Over Number	Run Rate
N-2	8.00
N	7.43
N+2	8.11
N+4	8.45
N+6	8.08

Show Hint

The Correct Option is D

Solution and Explanation

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